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| Colonial Chicken Curry |
Once I had a long fight with a collegue of mine. He had gone to Bhojohari Manna (a chain of restaurants serving Bengali food) for lunch and ordered Chicken Dak Bungalow – but the dish came sans the Egg. After he had returned from that lunch I mentioned him that the dish includes an Egg too, but he wasn’t convinced. Later after having the same dish sometime later, was he convinced that the restaurant folks didnot include the egg the first time he had the dish. Chicken Dakbungalow happens to be one of my favourite dishes and I always order it when I go visiting Bhojohari Manna. Taking inspiration from the dish, I prepared a Dum Chicken Dak Bungalow quite sometime back.
But a few days back, when we had a friend visiting our place, I thought of recreating something like the Chicken Dak Bungalow but with a subtle twist – which I named – Colonial Chicken Curry.
The final result was – Jeera rice, Moong dal, Begun bhaja and the Chicken Curry. Our friend enjoyed it a lot.
And here is the dish recreated.
Serves: 3-4
Preparation Time: 20 mins.
Cooking Time: 1 hr.
Ingredients:
- Chicken: 800 gms.On the bone.
- Eggs: 4.Boiled.
- 2 big potatoes (2*100 gms).Each sliced into half.
- Onion: 200 gms.Julienned.
- Ginger Paste: 2 tbsp
- Garlic Paste: 2 tbsp
- Green Chili:5-6.Slit.
- Coriander Leaves:5-6 tbsp.
- Mustard Oil:3 tbsp to fry the potato slices and the boiled eggs.6-8 tbsp for the curry.
- Sugar: 1 tsp
- Salt: to taste
- Powdered Spices:
- Coriander Powder: 3 tsp
- Cumin Seed Paste: 2 tsp
- Dry Red Chili Paste: 2 tbsp
- Turmeric Powder: 1 tsp for the curry, 2 tsp for coating the eggs and boiled potato
- Whole Spices:Bay Leaf: 2
- Whole Dry Red Chili: 3-4
- Cumin Seeds: 1 tsp
- Green Cardamon: 4-5
- Cloves: 5-6
- Cinnamon Stick:One 2 inch piece.
- Coat the potato slices and the boiled eggs with salt and turmeric powder.
- Make some incisions on the egg surface so that the spices go inside it.
- Heat 3 tbsp of mustard oil in a kadai.
- Once the oil gets hot – fry the eggs until the colour turns yellowish brown. Also fry the potato halves in the same oil and fry until yellowish.
- Keep aside the potato and eggs once fried.
- In the same kadai, heat 6-8 tbsp of mustard oil.
- Once the oil gets hot, add the whole spices – all at the same time.
- Once the spices start to sputter and release the aroma, add the ginger and garlic pastes.
- After around a minute, add the julienned onions.
- Sprinkle the sugar over the onions – which will help in faster caramelization.
- Fry the onions till they turn brown in colour.
- Then add the rest of the powdered spices.
- Continue to stir for a further 3-4 mins.
- Then add the Chicken pieces, slit green chilies and salt.
- Increase the heat to high and stir the ingredients briskly.
- This will help the spices to mix thoroughly with the chicken.
- After 15 mins, add the fried eggs and potato halves.
- Stir for a further 5 mins.
- Then pour some warm water – the quantity of which depends on the gravy required – and put a lid on the pan.
- Adjust salt, incase required.
- Continue to check at regular intervals to ensure that the ingredients does not stick to the bottom of the pan.
- Let the ingredients simmer till the chicken softens and turns soft and tender.
- The end result should be a thick and dense gravy, reddish in colour.
